Carrie: Hi, I’d like a cheeseburger, please, large fries, and a Cosmopolitan.

Need I say more? I mean, this is my kinda a gal. Carrie Bradshaw, the heroine in the acclaimed television series played by Sarah Jessica Parker–who made wearing underwear in public high fashion, one-night-stands an amoral imperative, and loyal-to-a-fault girlfriends the must-have in any urban woman’s survival kit–is someone I can totally see myself sipping cosmos with while wolfing down a burger. And talking about sex.

The first really good rosé I had was through Michelle Mendes, a Portugese friend I met in teachers’ college. She brought out a bottle of Mateus, a brand of medium-sweet frizzante rosé wine produced in Portugal, during one of our “let’s drink and gripe about teachers’ college” sessions. Super easy to drink, delicious, and just sweet enough, it was definitely a gateway drink for me. It’s what encouraged me to try other rosés and then white wines and then reds. Not to get sloshed with but to actually taste and enjoy.

Is the supposed exclamation of the Benedictin monk, Dom Perignon, at the moment he discovered Champagne. And I have to agree with Dom, bless his vintner heart. In a perfect world, I would have a glass of Champagne every night, stars or no stars.

Remember back when you were a kid, you slugged your way into the corner store after riding your bike around the neighborhood all summer afternoon, and you wanted, no needed, something to drink real bad, and there was the slushy machine whirring away, humming its inexorable, irresistible serenade to your thirst like some Slushy Siren Song, when you didn’t know what a Siren was let alone a song by one, but you felt that desperate pull, as strong as a hunger pang or the sexual impulse, before you knew what real hunger or sex was even.